I hate the 'my kids are my world' thing too. What do you want, a medal? I tend to avoid men who already have kids as I had a bad experience with this last year, and I'm still living in the (probably vain) hope that I'll meet someone in time to have one of my own.
Other than that I look for at least one clear, smiley close up photo and then a few more active ones. I always read the profiles - active, intelligent, interesting, upbeat and funny is the gold standard, but depressingly rare. Any hint of bitterness, sexism (or any -ism), laddishness or just being really dull and uninteresting is an instant no, as is really poor spelling and grammar.
A lot of it is horses for courses though - I travel a lot (as in extended backpacking type trips) so I tend to look for people who have done the same as it's something that's still massively important to me.
Love I'm feeling really down about it all today too. The chances of stumbling across anyone suitable and vaguely normal who I find attractive AND who feels the same way about me just seems ridiculously remote.
Pog thank you x Fwiw I think that if seeing Mr FWB makes you feel good then keep doing it, but if the angst starts to outweigh the good then stop.
I've always been a bit sceptical about Bumble, we've had the discussion on here before. In my area it seems to be mostly populated by the love children of David Gandy and the Milk Tray Man and I think most of the profiles are fake. I've had a lot of matches and a fair few conversations but precisely zero actual dates - Mr Douchebag Disappearing Act from yesterday was from Bumble so that may also tell you something! I'm pretty much giving up on it now.